Arlene Goldbard

The signs of cultural change can be subtle and hard to read, but now, an unmistakable signifier has emerged from the muddle: the United States has become a recipient of charity from other nations.
This fall, Senators from both parties urged oil executives to take part in winter fuel assistance programs by donating a percentage [...]

Last week, amidst the news of earthquakes, storms and governmental misdeeds, I sat around the dinner table with half a dozen friends, having “the conversation”–you know the one I mean. These conscientious, thoughtful people contribute a great deal of time and resources to heal the earth and create more just societies. But on this evening, [...]

The full extent of damage to lives and property on the Gulf Coast is unknown, but experts are expressing certainty that in terms of what it will take to repair a significant part of the damage, it is the worst such disaster to afflict the United States. The scenes of people mourning their homes and [...]

My name is Arlene, and I’m a hypocrite.
Remember on April 29th, when I wrote about how the “peak oil” documentary The End of Suburbia, when I wrote about my determination to put up with the inconvenience of a one-car family so as to minimize my complicity with Big Oil? Well, the shelf-life of that [...]

In the past few weeks I’ve had a remarkable number of experiences that lead me to reconsider some principles that once seemed rock solid. The through-line I want to write about today has to do with a particular dialectic: for now, let’s call it “inside/outside” or “exclusion/entitlement,” but it will take more than two [...]

Passover ends on Sunday night, and I want to write one last time about the thinking it provokes. In the exodus story, Pharaoh’s power-mad distortion is such that he persists in refusing to free the slaves, even after his own advisors warn him that his policies are resulting in Egypt’s destruction. My friend Arthur Waskow [...]

I’m taking time off, as I wrote a few days ago, which means that beyond the non-negotiable obligations on my calendar, I’m doing only what I enjoy — nothing that feels like drudgery. One of the things I enjoy most is being reminded to keep my eyes wide open.
Time off means that life suddenly [...]

I hate TV commercials, so I tape the programs I like and watch them at leisure, fast-forwarding through the ads. Last night, I watched a “West Wing” from November that focused in part on an alternative energy summit convened in the fictional Bartlett White House. One by one, the president’s advisor dismisses the offerings of [...]

Good survey essay by Bill McKibben in the \New York Review of Books\ on the Bush administration?s environmental destruction policy. He describes how ?The bill that turned the national forests back to loggers in the name of protecting against wildfire, for instance, was called the “Healthy Forests Initiative,” though, as [Carl] Pope suggests, “Horizontal [...]